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Criterion September Releases (US - DVD R1 | BD RA)

Criterion announces their new titles for the month of September..

Criterion has announced their releases for the month of September. Each film will be available on both DVD and Blu-ray, with the same special features.

Umberto D.

Quote: Release Date: 4 September 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: This neorealist masterpiece by Vittorio De Sica follows the daily life of an elderly pensioner as he struggles to make ends meet during Italy’s postwar economic recovery. Alone except for his dog, Flike, Umberto is determined to maintain his dignity in a city where human kindness seems to have been swallowed up by the forces of modernization. His simple quest to satisfy his most fundamental needs—food, shelter, companionship—makes for one of the most heartbreaking stories ever filmed, and an essential classic of world cinema.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition - That’s Life: Vittorio De Sica, a fifty-five-minute documentary made for Italian television in 2001 -Video interview with actress Maria Pia Casilio from 2003 -Trailer -A booklet featuring an essay by critic Stuart Klawans and reprinted recollections by De Sica and Carlo Battisti, who plays Umberto D.

Les visiteurs du soir

Quote: Release Date: 18 September 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: A work of poetry and dark humor, Les visiteurs du soir is a lyrical medieval fantasy from the great French director Marcel Carné. Two strangers (Arletty and Alain Cuny), dressed as minstrels, arrive at a castle in advance of court festivities—and it is revealed that they are actually emissaries of the devil himself, dispatched to spread heartbreak and suffering. Their plans, however, are thwarted by an unexpected intrusion: human love. Often interpreted as an allegory for the Nazi occupation of France, during which it was made, Les visiteurs du soir—wittily written by Jacques Prévert and Pierre Laroche, and elegantly designed by Alexandre Trauner and shot by Roger Hubert—is a moving and whimsical tale of love conquering all.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition - L’aventure des “Visiteurs du soir,” a documentary on the making of the film -Trailer -New English subtitle translation -A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson

Children of Paradise

Quote: Release Date: 18 September 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Poetic realism reached sublime heights with Children of Paradise (Les enfants du paradis), widely considered one of the greatest French films of all time. This nimble depiction of nineteenth-century Paris’s theatrical demimonde, filmed during World War II, follows a mysterious woman (Arletty) loved by four different men (all based on historical figures): an actor, a criminal, a count, and, most poignantly, a street mime (Jean-Louis Barrault, in a longing-suffused performance for the ages). With sensitivity and dramatic élan, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert resurrect a world teeming with hucksters and aristocrats, thieves and courtesans, pimps and seers. Thanks to a major new restoration, this iconic classic looks and sounds richer and more detailed than ever.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital transfer from Pathé’s 2011 restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -Audio commentaries by film scholars Brian Stonehill and Charles Affron -Video introduction by director Terry Gilliam - Once Upon a Time: “Children of Paradise", a 2010 documentary on the making of the film -New visual essay on the design of Children of Paradise by film writer Paul Ryan - The Birth of “Children of Paradise,” a 1967 German documentary that visits Nice, where the film was partially shot, and features interviews with cast members Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur; production designer Alexandre Trauner; and others -Restoration demonstration -U.S. trailer -New English subtitle translation -A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Dudley Andrew and excerpts from a 1990 interview with director Marcel Carné

The Game

Quote: Release Date: 25 September 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Enormously wealthy and emotionally remote investment banker Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) receives a strange gift from his ne’er-do-well younger brother (Sean Penn) on his forty-eighth birthday: a voucher for a game that, if he agrees to play it, will change his life. Thus begins a trip down a rabbit hole that is puzzling, terrifying, and exhilarating for Nicholas and viewer alike. This multilayered, noirish descent into one man’s personal hell is also a surreal, metacinematic journey that, two years after the phenomenon Se7en, further demonstrated that director David Fincher was one of Hollywood’s true contemporary visionaries.

Eating Raoul

Quote: Release Date: 25 September 2012 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: A sleeper hit of the early 1980s, Eating Raoul is a bawdy, gleefully amoral tale of conspicuous consumption. Warhol superstar Mary Woronov and cult legend Paul Bartel (who also directed) portray a prudish married couple feeling put upon by the swingers who live in their apartment building; one night, by accident, they discover a way to simultaneously realize their dream of opening a little restaurant and rid themselves of the “perverts” down the hall. A mix of hilarious, anything-goes slapstick and biting satire of me-generation self-indulgence, Eating Raoul marks the end of the sexual revolution with a thwack.

Disc Features -New, restored digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Gary Thieltges, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -Audio commentary featuring screenwriter Richard Blackburn, art director Robert Schulenberg, and editor Alan Toomayan - The Secret Cinema (1968) and Naughty Nurse (1969), two short films by director Paul Bartel - Cooking Up “Raoul,” a new documentary about the making of the film, featuring interviews with stars Mary Woronov, Robert Beltran, and Edie McClurg -Gag reel of outtakes from the film -Archival interview with Bartel and Woronov -Trailer -A booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Ehrenstein